The Throne of Fire

16. …But Not as Evil as Romans

TO BE FAIR, THE MUMMIES in that particular room were mostly ruined already, thanks to the moisture from the leaking tower above. Just add water to mummies for a truly horrible smell.

We climbed over the rubble and found a corridor leading deeper underground. I couldn’t tell whether it was natural or man-made, but it snaked a good forty meters through solid rock before opening into another burial chamber. This room had not been damaged by water. Everything was remarkably well preserved. Walt had brought torches [flashlights, for you Americans], and in the dim light, on stone slabs and in niches carved along the walls, gold-painted mummies glittered. There were at least a hundred in this room alone, and more corridors led off in each direction.

Walt shined his light on three mummies lying together on a central dais. Their bodies were completely wrapped in linen, so they looked rather like bowling pins. Their likenesses were painted on the linen in meticulous detail—hands crossed over their chests, jewelry adorning their necks, Egyptian kilt and sandals, and a host of protective hieroglyphs and images of the gods in a border on each side. All this was typical Egyptian art, but their faces were done in a completely different style —realistic portraits that looked cut-and-pasted onto the mummies’ heads. On the left was a man with a thin, bearded face and sad dark eyes. On the right was a beautiful woman with curly auburn hair. What really pulled at my heart, though, was the mummy in the middle. Its body was tiny—obviously a child. Its portrait showed a boy of about seven years old. He had the man’s eyes and the woman’s hair.

“A family,” Walt guessed. “Buried together.”

There was something tucked under the child’s right elbow —a small wooden horse, possibly his favorite toy. Even though this family had been dead for thousands of years, I couldn’t help getting a bit teary-eyed. It was so bloody sad.

“How did they die?” I wondered.

From the corridor directly in front of us, a voice echoed, “The wasting disease.”

My staff was instantly in my hand. Walt trained his torch on the doorway, and a ghost stepped into the room. At least I assumed he was a ghost, because he was see-through. He was a heavy older man with short-cropped white hair, bulldog jowls, and a cross expression. He wore Roman-style robes and kohl eyeliner, so he looked rather like Winston Churchill—if the old prime minister had thrown a wild toga party and gotten his face painted.

“Newly dead?” He eyed us warily. “Haven’t seen any new arrivals in a long time. Where are your bodies?”

Walt and I glanced at each other.

“Actually,” I said, “we’re wearing them.”

The ghost’s eyebrows shot up. “Di immortales! You’re alive?”

“So far,” Walt said.

“Then you’ve brought offerings?” The man rubbed his hands. “Oh, they said you would come, but we’ve waited ages! Where have you been?”

“Um…” I didn’t want to disappoint a ghost, especially as he was beginning to glow more brightly, which in magic is often a prelude to exploding. “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves. I’m Sadie Kane. This is Walt—”

“Of course! You need my name for the spells.” The ghost cleared his throat. “I am Appius Claudius Iratus.”

I got the feeling I was supposed to be impressed. “Right. That’s not Egyptian, I gather?”

The ghost looked offended. “Roman, of course. Following those cursed Egyptian customs is how we all ended up here to begin with! Bad enough I got stationed in this god-forsaken oasis—as if Rome needs an entire legion to guard some date farms! Then I had the bad luck to fall ill. Told my wife on my deathbed: ‘Lobelia, an old-fashioned Roman burial. None of this local nonsense.’ But no! She never listened. Had to mummify me, so my ba is stuck here forever. Women! She probably moved back to Rome and died in the proper way.”

“Lobelia?” I asked, because really I hadn’t heard much after that. What sort of parents name their child Lobelia?

The ghost huffed and crossed his arms. “But you don’t want to hear me ramble on, do you? You may call me Mad Claude. That’s the translation in your tongue.”

I wondered how a Roman ghost could speak English—or if I simply understood him through some sort of telepathy. Either way, I was not relieved to find out his name was Mad Claude.

“Um…” Walt raised his hand. “Are you mad as in angry? Or mad as in crazy?”

“Yes,” Claude said. “Now, about those offerings. I see staffs, wands, and amulets, so I assume you’re priests with the local House of Life? Good, good. Then you’ll know what to do.”

“What to do!” I agreed heartily. “Yes, quite!”

Claude’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, Jupiter. You’re novices, aren’t you? Did the temple even explain the problem to you?”

“Um—”

He stormed over to the family of mummies we’d been looking at. “This is Lucius, Flavia, and little Purpens. They died of the wasting plague. I’ve been here so long, I could tell you practically everyone’s story!”

“They talk to you?” I stepped away from the mummy family. Suddenly little Purpens didn’t seem so cute.

Mad Claude waved his hand impatiently. “Sometimes, yes. Not as much as in the old days. Their spirits sleep most of the time, now. The point is, no matter how bad a death these people had, their fate after death has been worse! All of us —all these Romans living in Egypt—got an Egyptian burial. Local customs, local priests, mummify the bodies for the next life, et cetera. We thought we were covering our bases—two religions, twice the insurance. Problem was, you foolish Egyptian priests didn’t know what you were doing anymore! By the time we Romans came along, most of your magic knowledge was lost. But did you tell us that? No! You were happy to take our coins and do a shoddy job.”

“Ah.” I backed away a bit more from Mad Claude, who was now glowing quite dangerously. “Well, I’m sure the House of Life has a customer service number for that—”

“You can’t go halfway with these Egyptian rituals,” he grumbled. “We ended up with mummified bodies and eternal souls tethered to them, and no one followed up! No one said the prayers to help us move to the next life. No one made offerings to nourish our bas. Do you know how hungry I am?”

“We’ve got some beef jerky,” Walt offered.

“We couldn’t go to Pluto’s realm like good Romans,” Mad Claude went on, “because our bodies had been prepared for a different afterlife. We couldn’t go to the Duat, because we weren’t given the proper Egyptian rituals. Our souls were stuck here, attached to these bodies. Do you have any idea how boring it is down here?”

“So, if you’re a ba,” I asked, “why don’t you have a bird’s body?”

“I told you! We’re all mixed up, not pure Roman ghost, not proper ba. If I had wings, believe me, I’d fly out of here! By the way, what year is it? Who’s the emperor now?”

“Oh, his name is—” Walt coughed, then rushed on: “You know, Claude, I’m sure we can help you.”

“We can?” I said. “Oh, right! We can!”

Walt nodded encouragingly. “The thing is, we have to find something first.”

“A scroll,” I put in. “Part of the Book of Ra.”

Claude scratched his considerable jowls. “And this will help you send our souls to the next life?”

“Well…” I said.

“Yes,” Walt said.

“Possibly,” I said. “We don’t really know until we find it. It’s supposed to wake Ra, you see, which will help the Egyptian gods. I’d think that would improve your chances at getting into the afterlife. Besides, I’m on good terms with the Egyptian gods. They pop over for tea from time to time. If you helped us, I could put in a word.”

Honestly, I’d just been making up things to say. I’m sure this will surprise you, but I sometimes ramble when I get nervous.

[Oh, stop laughing, Carter.]

At any rate, Mad Claude’s expression became shrewder. He studied us as if assessing our bank accounts. I wondered if the Roman Empire had used chariot salesmen, and if Mad Claude had been one. I imagined him on a Roman commercial in a cheap plaid toga: I must be crazy to be giving away chariots at these prices!

“On good terms with the Egyptian gods,” he mused. “Put in a word, you say.”

Then he turned to Walt. Claude’s expression was so calculating, so eager, it made my skin crawl. “If the scroll you seek is ancient, it would be in the oldest section of the catacombs. Some natives were buried there, you know, long before we Romans came along. Their bas have all moved on now. No trouble getting into the Duat for them. But their burial sites are still intact, lots of relics and so on.”

“You’d be willing to show us?” Walt asked, with much more excitement than I could’ve managed.

“Oh, yes.” Mad Claude gave us his best “used chariot salesman” smile. “And later, we’ll talk about an appropriate fee, eh? Come along, my friends. It’s not far.”

Note to self: When a ghost offers to guide you deeper into a burial site and his name includes the word Mad, it’s best to say no.

As we passed through tunnels and chambers, Mad Claude gave us a running commentary on the various mummies. Caligula the date merchant: “Horrible name! But once you’re named for an emperor, even a psychotic one, you can’t do much about it. He died betting someone he could kiss a scorpion.” Varens the slaver: “Disgusting man. Tried to go into the gladiator business. If you give a slave a sword, well…you can guess how he died!” Octavia the legion commander’s wife: “Went completely native! Had her cat mummified. She even believed she had the blood of the pharaohs and tried to channel the spirit of Isis. Her death, needless to say, was painful.”

He grinned at me like this was extremely funny. I tried not to look horrified.

What struck me most was the sheer number and variety of the mummies. Some were wrapped in real gold. Their portraits were so lifelike, their eyes seemed to follow me as we passed. They sat on ornately carved marble slabs surrounded by valuables: jewelry, vases, even some shabti. Other mummies looked as if nursery school children had made them in art class. They were crudely wrapped, painted with shaky hieroglyphs and little stick-figure gods. Their portraits were not much better than I could’ve done—which is to say, dreadful. Their bodies were stuffed three-deep in shallow niches, or simply piled in the corners of the room.

When I asked about them, Mad Claude was dismissive. “Commoners. Wannabes. Didn’t have money for artists and funeral rites, so they tried the do-it-yourself approach.”

I looked down at the portrait of the nearest mummy, her face a crude finger-painted image. I wondered if her grieving children had made it—one last gift for their mother. Despite the bad quality, I found it rather sweet. They had no money and no artistic skill, but they’d done their best to lovingly send her to the afterlife. Next time I saw Anubis, I would ask him about this. A woman like that deserved a chance at happiness in the next world, even if she couldn’t pay. We had quite enough snobbery in this world without exporting it to the hereafter.

Walt trailed behind us, not speaking. He’d shine his light on this mummy or that, as if pondering each one’s fate. I wondered if he was thinking of King Tut, his famous ancestor, whose tomb had been in a cavern not too different from this.

After several more long tunnels and crowded mummy rooms, we arrived in a burial chamber that was clearly much older. The wall paintings had faded, but they looked more authentically Egyptian, with the sideways-walking people and hieroglyphs that actually formed words, rather than simply providing decoration. Instead of realistic facial portraits, the mummies had the generic wide-eyed, smiling faces I’d seen on most Egyptian death masks. A few had crumbled to dust. Others were encased in stone sarcophagi.

“Natives,” Mad Claude confirmed. “Egyptian nobles from before Rome took over. What you’re looking for should be somewhere in this area.”

I scanned the room. The only other doorway was blocked with boulders and debris. While Walt began searching, I remembered what Bes had said—that the first two scrolls of Ra might help me find the third. I pulled them from my bag, hoping they would point the way like a dowsing rod, but nothing happened.

From the other side of the room, Walt called, “What’s this?”

He was standing in front of some sort of shrine—a niche set into the wall, with the statue of a man wrapped like a mummy. The figure was carved from wood, decorated with jewels and precious metals. His wrappings glistened like pearl in the light of the torch. He held a golden staff with a silver djed symbol on top. Around his feet stood several golden rodents—rats, perhaps. The skin of his face gleamed turquoise blue.

“It’s my dad,” I guessed. “Er…I mean Osiris, isn’t it?”

Mad Claude arched his eyebrows. “Your dad?”

Fortunately, Walt saved me from explaining. “No,” he said. “Look at his beard.”

The statue’s beard was rather unusual. It was pencil thin from his sideburns around his jaw line, with a perfectly straight bit coming down for a goatee—as if someone had traced the beard with a grease pen, then stuck the pen on his chin.

“And the collar,” Walt continued. “It’s got a tassel thing hanging down in back. You don’t see that with Osiris. And those animals at his feet…are those rats? I remember some story about rats—

“I thought you were priests,” Mad Claude grumped. “Obviously, the god is Ptah.”

“Ptah?” I’d heard quite a few odd Egyptian god names, but this was a new one for me. “Ptah, son of Pitooey? Is he the god of spitting?”

Claude glared at me. “Are you always so irreverent?”

“Usually, more.”

“A novice and a heretic,” he said. “Just my luck. Well, girl, I shouldn’t have to teach you about your own gods, but as I understand it, Ptah was the god of craftsmen. We compared him to our Roman god Vulcan.”

“Then what’s he doing in a tomb?” Walt asked.

Claude scratched his nonexistent head. “I’ve never been sure, actually. You don’t see him in most Egyptian funeral rites.”

Walt pointed to the statue’s staff. When I looked more closely, I realized the djed symbol was combined with something else, a curved top that looked strangely familiar.

“That’s the symbol was,” Walt said. “It means power. Lots of the gods had staffs like that, but I never realized it looks like—”

“Yes, yes,” Claude said impatiently. “The priest’s ceremonial knife for opening the mouth of the dead. Honestly, you Egyptian priests are hopeless. No wonder we conquered you so easily.”

My hand acted quite on its own, reaching into my bag and bringing out the black netjeri blade Anubis had given me.

Mad Claude’s eyes glinted. “Ah, so you’re not hopeless. That’s perfect! With that knife and the proper spell, you should be able to touch my mummy and release me into the Duat.”

“No,” I said. “No, there’s more to it. The knife, the Book of Ra, this statue of the spit god. It all fits together somehow.”

Walt’s face lit up. “Sadie, Ptah was more than the craftsman god, right? Didn’t they call him the God of Opening?”

“Um…possibly.”

“I thought you taught us that. Or maybe it was Carter.”

“Boring bit of information? Probably Carter.”

“But it’s important,” Walt insisted. “Ptah was a creation god. In some legends, he created the souls of mankind just by speaking a word. He could revive any soul, and open any door.”

My eyes drifted to the debris-filled doorway, the only other exit from the room. “Open any door?”

I held up the two scrolls of Ra and walked toward the collapsed tunnel. The scrolls became uncomfortably warm.

“The last scroll is on the other side,” I said. “We need to get past this rubble.”

I held the black knife in one hand and the scrolls in the other. I spoke the command for Open. Nothing happened. I went back to the statue of Ptah and tried the same thing. No luck.

“Hullo, Ptah?” I called. “Sorry about the spit comment. Look, we’re trying to get the third scroll of Ra, which is on the other side, there. I suppose you were placed here to open a path. So would you mind terribly?”

Still nothing happened.

Mad Claude gripped the trim of his toga as if he wanted to strangle us with it. “Look, I don’t know why you need this scroll to free us if you’ve got the knife. But why don’t you try an offering? All gods need offerings.”

Walt rummaged through his supplies. He placed a juice pouch and a bit of beef jerky at the foot of the statue. The statue did nothing. Even the gold rats at his feet apparently didn’t want our beef jerky.

“Bloody spit god.” I threw myself down on the dusty ground. I had a mummy on either side of me, but I didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t believe we were so close to the last scroll, after fighting demons, gods, and Russian assassins, and now we’d been stopped by a pile of rocks.

“I hate to suggest it,” Walt said, “but you could blast through with the ha-di spell.”

“And bring down the ceiling on top of us?” I said.

“You’d die,” Claude agreed. “Which isn’t an experience I’d recommend.”

Walt knelt next to me. “There’s got to be something…” He took stock of his amulets.

Mad Claude paced the room. “I still don’t understand. You’re priests. You have the ceremonial knife. Why can’t you release us?”

“The knife isn’t for you!” I snapped. “It’s for Ra!”

Walt and Claude both stared at me. I hadn’t realized it before, but as soon as I spoke, I knew it was the truth.

“Sorry,” I said. “But the knife is used for the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, to free a soul. I’ll need it to awaken Ra. That’s why Anubis gave it to me.”

“You know Anubis!” Claude clapped with delight. “He can free us all! And you—” He pointed at Walt. “You’re one of Anubis’s chosen, aren’t you? You can get us more knives if you need them! I sensed the presence of the god around you as soon as we met. Did you take his service when he realized you were dying?”

“Wait…what?” I asked.

Walt wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m not a priest of Anubis.”

“But dying?” I choked up. “How are you dying?”

Mad Claude looked incredulous. “You mean you don’t know? He’s got the old pharaoh’s curse. We didn’t see it much in my day, but I recognize it, all right. Occasionally a person from one of the old Egyptian royal lines—”

“Claude, shut up,” I said. “Walt, speak. How does this curse work?”

In the dim light, he looked thinner and older. On the wall behind him, his shadow loomed like a deformed monster.

“Akhenaton’s curse runs in my family,” he said. “Kind of a genetic disease. Not every generation, not every person, but when it strikes, it’s bad. Tut died at nineteen. Most of the others…twelve, thirteen. I’m sixteen now. My dad…my dad was eighteen. I never knew him.”

“Eighteen?” That alone brought up a host of new questions, but I tried to stay focused. “Can’t it be cured…?” Guilt washed over me, and I felt like a total imbecile. “Oh, god. That’s why you were talking to Jaz. She’s a healer.”

Walt nodded grimly. “I thought she might know spells that I hadn’t been able to find. My dad’s family—they spent years searching. My mom has been looking for a cure since I was born. The doctors in Seattle couldn’t do anything.”

“Doctors,” Mad Claude said with disgust. “I had one in the legion, loved to put leeches on my legs. Only made me worse. Now, about this connection to Anubis, and using that knife…”

Walt shook his head. “Claude, we’ll try to help you, but not with the knife. I know magic items. I’m pretty sure it can be used only once, and we can’t just make another. If Sadie needs it for Ra, she can’t risk using it before that.”

“Excuses!” Claude roared.

“If you don’t shut up,” I warned, “I’m going to find your mummy and draw a mustache on your portrait!”

Claude turned as white as…well, a ghost. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Walt,” I said, trying to ignore the Roman, “was Jaz able to help?”

“She tried her best. But this curse has been defying healers for three thousand years. Modern doctors think it’s related to sickle cell anemia, but they don’t know. They’ve been trying for decades to figure out how King Tut died, and they can’t agree. Some say poison. Some say a genetic disease. It’s the curse, but of course they can’t say that.”

“Isn’t there any way? I mean we know gods. Perhaps I could cure you like Isis did Ra. If I knew your secret name—”

“Sadie, I’ve thought of that,” he said. “I’ve thought of everything. The curse can’t be cured. It can only be slowed down if…if I avoid magic. That’s why I got into talismans and amulets. They store magic in advance, so they don’t require as much from the user. But it’s only helped a little bit. I was born to do magic, so the curse progresses in me no matter what I do. Some days it’s not so bad. Some days my whole body is in pain. When I do magic, it gets worse.”

“And the more you do—”

“The faster I die.”

I punched him in the chest. I couldn’t help it. All my grief and guilt flipped right to anger. “You idiot! Why are you here, then? You should’ve told me to shove off! Bes warned you to stay in Brooklyn. Why didn’t you listen?”

What I told you earlier about Walt’s eyes not melting me? I take it back. When he looked at me in that dusty tomb, his eyes were every bit as dark, tender, and sad as Anubis’s. “I’m going to die anyway, Sadie. I want my life to mean something. And…I want to spend as much time as I can with you.”

That hurt me worse than a punch in the chest. Much worse.

I think I might’ve kissed him. Or possibly slapped him.

Mad Claude, however, was not a sympathetic audience. “Very sweet, I’m sure, but you promised me payment! Come back to the Roman tombs. Release my spirit from my mummy. Then release the others. After that, you can do as you like.”

“The others?” I asked. “Are you mad?”

He stared at me.

“Silly question,” I conceded. “But there are thousands of mummies. We have one knife.”

“You promised!”

“We did not,” I said. “You said we’d discuss a fee after we found the scroll. We’ve found nothing but a dead end here.”

The ghost growled, more like a wolf than a human. “If you won’t come to us,” he said, “we’ll come to you.”

His spirit glowed, then disappeared in a flash.

I looked nervously at Walt. “What did he mean by that?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But we should figure out how to get through that rubble and get out of here—quickly.”

Despite our best efforts, nothing happened quickly. We couldn’t move the debris. There were too many large boulders. We couldn’t dig around, over, or under it. I didn’t dare risk a ha-di spell or use the black knife’s magic. Walt had no amulets that would help. I was frankly stumped. The statue of Ptah smiled at us but didn’t offer any helpful suggestions, nor did he seem interested in the beef jerky and juice.

Finally, covered with dust, drenched with sweat, I plopped down on a stone sarcophagus and examined my blistered fingers.

Walt sat next to me. “Don’t give up. There has to be a way.”

“Does there?” I asked, feeling especially resentful. “Like there has to be a cure for you? What if there isn’t? What if…”

My voice broke. Walt turned his face so it was hidden in shadow.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was terrible. But I just couldn’t stand it if…”

I was so confused, I didn’t know what to say, or how I felt. All I knew was that I didn’t want to lose Walt.

“Did you mean it?” I asked. “When you said you wanted to spend time…you know.”

Walt shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I didn’t answer, but, please—nothing is obvious with boys. For such simple creatures, they are quite baffling.

I imagined I was blushing fiercely, so I decided to change the subject.

“Claude said he sensed the spirit of Anubis about you. You’ve been talking to Anubis a lot?”

Walt turned his rings. “I thought maybe he could help me. Maybe grant me a little extra time before…before the end. I wanted to be around long enough to help you defeat Apophis. Then I’d feel like I did something with my life. And…there were other reasons I wanted to talk to him. About some—some powers I’ve been developing.”

“What sort of powers?”

It was Walt’s turn to change the subject. He looked at his hands like they’d become dangerous weapons. “The thing is, I almost didn’t come to Brooklyn. When I got the djed amulet —that calling card you guys sent—my mom didn’t want me to leave. She knew that learning magic would make the curse accelerate. Part of me was afraid to go. Part of me was angry. It seemed like a cruel joke. You guys offered to train me for magic when I knew I wouldn’t survive longer than a year or two.”

“A year or two?” I could hardly breathe. I’d always thought of a year as an incredibly long time. I’d waited forever to turn thirteen. And each school term seemed like an eternity. But suddenly two years seemed much too short. I’d only be fifteen, not even driving yet. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to know that I would die in two years—possibly sooner, if I continued doing what I was born to do, practicing magic. “Why did you come to Brooklyn, then?”

“I had to,” Walt said. “I’ve lived my whole life under the threat of death. My mom made everything so serious, so huge. But when I got to Brooklyn, I felt like I had a destiny, a purpose. Even if it made the curse more painful, it was worth it.”

“But it’s so bloody unfair.”

Walt looked at me, and I realized he was smiling. “That’s my line. I’ve been saying that for years. Sadie, I want to be here. The past two months I’ve felt like I’m actually living for the first time. And getting to know you…” He cleared his throat. He was quite attractive when he got nervous. “I started worrying about small things. My hair. My clothes. Whether I brushed my teeth. I mean, I’m dying, and I’m worrying about my teeth.”

“You have lovely teeth.”

He laughed. “That’s what I mean. A little comment like that, and I feel better. All these small things suddenly seem important. I don’t feel like I’m dying. I feel happy.”

Personally, I felt miserable. For months I’d dreamed about Walt admitting he liked me, but not like this—not like, I can be honest with you, because I’m dying anyway.

Something he’d said was nagging at me, too. It reminded me of a lesson I’d taught at Brooklyn House, and an idea began to form in my mind.

“‘Small things suddenly seem important,’” I repeated. I looked down at a little mound of rubble we’d cleared from the blocked doorway. “Oh, it couldn’t be that easy.”

“What?” asked Walt.

“Rocks.”

“I just bared my soul, and you’re thinking about rocks?”

“The doorway,” I said. “Sympathetic magic. Do you think…”

He blinked. “Sadie Kane, you’re a genius.”

“Well I know that. But can we make it work?”

Walt and I began gathering up more pebbles. We chipped some pieces from the larger boulders and added them to our pile. We tried our best to make a miniature replica of the rubble collection blocking the doorway.

My hope, of course, was to create a sympathetic bond, as I’d done with Carter and the wax figurine in Alexandria. The rocks in our replica pile came from the collapsed tunnel, so our pile and the original were already connected in substance, which should have made it easy to establish a link. But moving something very large with something very small is always tricky. If we didn’t do it carefully, we could collapse the whole room. I didn’t know how deep underground we were, but I imagined there was quite enough rock and dirt over our heads to bury us forever.

“Ready?” I asked.

Walt nodded and pulled out his wand.

“Oh, no, cursed boy,” I said. “You just watch my back. If the ceiling starts to fall and we need a shield, that’s your job. But you’ll do no magic unless absolutely necessary. I’ll clear the doorway.”

“Sadie, I’m not fragile,” he complained. “I don’t need a protector.”

“Rubbish,” I said. “That’s macho bluster, and all boys like to be mothered.”

“What? God, you’re annoying!”

I smiled sweetly. “You did want to spend time with me.”

Before he could protest, I raised my wand and began the spell.

I imagined a bond between our small pile of rubble and the debris in the doorway. I imagined that in the Duat, they were one and the same. I spoke the command for join:

“Hi-nehm.”

The symbol burned faintly over our miniature rubble pile.

Slowly and carefully, I brushed a few pebbles away from the pile. The debris in the corridor rumbled.

“It’s working,” Walt said.

I didn’t dare look. I stayed focused on my task—moving the pebbles a little at a time, dispersing the pile into smaller mounds. It was almost as hard as moving real boulders. I went into a daze. When Walt put his hand on my shoulder, I had no idea how much time had passed. I was so exhausted I couldn’t see straight.

“It’s done,” he said. “You did great.”

The doorway was clear. The rubble had been pushed into the corners of our room, where it lay in smaller piles.

“Nice job, Sadie.” Walt leaned down and kissed me. He was probably just expressing appreciation or happiness, but the kiss didn’t make me feel any less fuzzyheaded.

“Um,” I said—again with the incredible verbal skills.

Walt helped me to my feet. We headed down the corridor into the next room. For all the work we’d done to get there, the room wasn’t very exciting, just a five-meter-square chamber with nothing inside except a red lacquered box on a sandstone pedestal. On top of the box was a carved wooden handle shaped like a demonic greyhound with tall ears—the Set animal.

“Oh, that can’t be good,” Walt said.

But I walked straight up to the box, opened the lid, and grabbed the scroll inside.

“Sadie!” Walt yelled.

“What?” I turned. “It’s Set’s box. If he’d wanted to kill me, he could’ve done so in St. Petersburg. He wants me to have this scroll. Probably thinks it’ll be fun watching me kill myself trying to awaken Ra.” I looked up at the ceiling and shouted, “Isn’t that right, Set?”

My voice echoed through the catacombs. I no longer had the power to invoke Set’s secret name, but I still felt as if I’d gotten his attention. The air turned sharper. The ground trembled as if something underneath it, something very large, was laughing.

Walt exhaled. “I wish you wouldn’t take chances like that.”

“This from a boy who’s willing to die to spend time with me?”

Walt made an exaggerated bow. “I take it back, Miss Kane. Please, go right ahead trying to kill yourself.”

“Thank you.”

I looked at the three scrolls in my hands—the entire Book of Ra, together for probably the first time since Mad Claude wore little Roman diapers. I had collected the scrolls, done the impossible, triumphed beyond all expectations. Yet it still wouldn’t be enough unless we could find Ra and wake him before Apophis rose. “No time to waste,” I said. “Let’s get—”

Deep moaning echoed through the corridors, as if something—or a whole host of somethings—had woken up in a very bad mood.

“Out of here,” Walt said. “Great idea.”

As we ran through the previous chamber, I glanced at the statue of Ptah. I was tempted to take back the jerky and juice, just to be mean, but I decided against it.

I suppose it isn’t your fault, I thought. Can’t be easy to have a name like Ptah. Enjoy the snack, but I do wish you’d helped us.

We ran on. It wasn’t easy to remember our path. Twice we had to double back before finding the room with the family of mummies where we’d met Mad Claude.

I was about to bolt blindly across the chamber and into the last tunnel, but Walt held me back and saved my life. He shined his light on the far exit, then on the corridors to either side.

“No,” I said. “No, no, no.”

All three doorways were clogged with human figures wrapped in linen. They pressed together as far as I could see down each corridor. Some were still completely bound. They hopped and shuffled and waddled forward as if they were giant cocoons engaged in a sack race. Other mummies had partially broken free. They limped along on emaciated legs, hands like dried branches clawing at their wrappings. Most still wore their painted-face portraits, and the effect was gruesome—lifelike masks smiling serenely at the top of undead scarecrows of bones and painted linen.

“I hate mummies,” I whimpered.

“Maybe a fire spell,” Walt said. “They’ve got to burn easily.”

“We’ll burn ourselves, too! It’s too close in here.”

“You have a better idea?”

I wanted to cry. Freedom so near—and just as I’d feared, we were trapped by a crowd of mummies. But these were worse than movie mummies. They were silent and slow, pathetic ruined things that once were human.

One of the mummies on the floor grabbed my leg. Before I could even scream, Walt reached out and tapped the thing on the wrist. The mummy instantly turned to dust.

I stared at him in amazement. “Is that the power you were worried about? That was brilliant! Do it again!”

Immediately I felt awful suggesting it. Walt’s face was tight with pain.

“I can’t do it a thousand more times,” he said sadly. “Maybe if…”

Then, on the central dais, the mummy family began to stir.

I will not lie. When the child-size mummy of little Pur-pens sat up, I almost had an accident that would’ve ruined my new jeans. If my ba could’ve shed my skin and flown away, it would have.

I gripped Walt’s arm.

At the far end of the room, the ghost of Mad Claude flickered into view. As he walked toward us, the rest of the mummies began to stir.

“You should be honored, my friends.” He gave us a crazy grin. “It takes a lot of excitement for ba to return to their withered old bodies. But we simply can’t let you leave until you’ve freed us for the afterlife. Use the knife, do your spells, and you can go.”

“We can’t free you all!” I shouted.

“A shame,” Claude said. “Then we’ll take the knife and free ourselves. I suppose two more bodies in the catacombs won’t make any difference.”

He said something in Latin, and all the mummies surged toward us, shuffling and tripping, falling and rolling. Some crumbled to pieces as they tried to walk. Others fell down and were trampled by their fellows. But more came forward.

We backed into the corridor. I had my staff in one hand. With my other, I held tight to Walt’s hand. I’d never been good at summoning fire, but I managed to set the end of my staff ablaze.

“We’ll try it your way,” I told Walt. “Light them up and run.”

I knew it was a bad idea. In close quarters, a blaze would hurt us as much as the mummies. We’d die of smoke inhalation or suffocation or heat. Even if we managed to retreat back into the catacombs, we’d just get lost and run into more mummies.

Walt lit his own staff.

“On three,” I suggested. I stared in horror at the child’s mummy coming toward us, the portrait of a seven-year-old boy smiling at me from beyond the grave. “One, two—”

I faltered. The mummies were only a meter away, but from behind me came a new sound—like water running. No—like skittering. A mass of living things charging toward us, thousands and thousands of tiny claws on stone, possibly insects or…

“Three comes next,” Walt said nervously. “Are we torching them or not?”

“Hug the walls!” I shrieked. I didn’t know exactly what was coming, but I knew I didn’t want to be in their way. I pushed Walt against the stone and flattened myself next to him, our faces pressed against the wall, as a wave of claws and fur slammed into us and rolled over our backs: an army of rodents scuttling five-deep along the floor and racing horizontally across the walls, defying gravity.

Rats. Thousands of rats.

They ran straight over us, doing no damage except for the odd claw scratch. Not so bad, you might think, but have you ever been upright and trampled by an army of filthy rats? Do not pay money for the experience.

The rats flooded the burial chamber. They tore into the mummies, clawing and chewing and squealing their tiny battle cries. The mummies writhed under the assault, but they didn’t stand a chance. The room was a hurricane of fur, teeth, and shredded linen. It was like the old cartoons of termites swarming over wood and dissolving it to nothing.

“No!” yelled Mad Claude. “No!”

But he was the only one screaming. The mummies withered silently under the fury of the rats.

“I’ll get you!” Claude snarled as his spirit began to flicker. “I’ll have my revenge!”

And with one final evil glare, his image faded and was gone.

The rats divided their forces and scurried off down all three corridors, chewing through mummies as they went, until the room was silent and empty, the floor littered with dust, shreds of linen, and a few bones.

Walt looked shaken. I fell against him and hugged him. I probably cried with relief. I was so glad to hold a warm living human being.

“It’s okay.” He stroked my hair, which felt awfully good. “That—that was the story about rats.”

“What?” I managed.

“They…they saved Memphis. An enemy army besieged the city, and the people prayed for help. Their patron god sent a horde of rats. They ate the enemy’s bowstrings, their sandals, everything they could chew. The attackers had to withdraw.”

“The patron god—you mean—”

“Me.” From the exit corridor across the room, an Egyptian farmer stepped into view. He wore grubby robes, a head wrap, and sandals. He held a rifle at his side. He grinned at us, and as he got closer, I saw his eyes were blank white. His skin had a slightly bluish tint, as if he were suffocating and really enjoying the experience.

“Sorry I didn’t answer sooner,” said the farmer. “I am Ptah. And no, Sadie Kane, I am not the god of spit.”

“Please, have a seat,” the god said. “Sorry about the mess, but what do expect from Romans? They never did clean up after themselves.”

Neither Walt nor I sat. A grinning god with a rifle was a bit off-putting.

“Ah, quite right.” Ptah blinked his blank white eyes. “You’re in a hurry.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Are you a date farmer?”

Ptah looked down at his grubby robes. “I’m just borrowing this poor fellow for a minute, you understand. I thought you wouldn’t mind, as he was coming down here to shoot you for destroying his water tower.”

“No, carry on,” I said. “But the mummies—what will happen to their ba?”

Ptah laughed. “Don’t worry about them. Now that their remains are destroyed, I imagine their ba will go on to whatever Roman afterlife awaits them. As it should be.”

He put his hand over his mouth and burped. A cloud of white gas billowed out, coalesced into a glowing ba, and flew off down the corridor.

Walt pointed after the spirit bird. “Did you just—”

“Yes.” Ptah sighed. “I really try not to talk at all. That’s how I create, you see, with words. They can get me into trouble. Once just for fun I made up the word ‘platypus’ and—”

Instantly, a duckbilled, furry thing appeared on the floor, scrabbling around in a panic.

“Oh, dear,” Ptah said. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Slip of the tongue. Really the only way something like that could have been created.”

He waved his hand, and the platypus disappeared. “At any rate, I have to be careful, so I can’t talk long. I’m glad you found the Book of Ra! I always did like the old chap. I would have helped earlier, when you asked, but it took a while to get here from the Duat. Also, I can open only one door per customer. I thought you had that blocked corridor well in hand. But there’s a much more important door that you need.”

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Your brother,” Ptah said. “He’s in a great deal of trouble.”

As exhausted, bedraggled, and covered with rat scratches as I was, that news set my nerves tingling. Carter needed help. I had to save my brother’s ridiculous hide.

“Can you send us there?” I asked.

Ptah smiled. “Thought you’d never ask.”

He pointed to the nearest wall. The stones dissolved into a portal of swirling sand.

“And, my dear, some words of advice.” Ptah’s milky eyes studied me. “Courage. Hope. Sacrifice.”

I wasn’t sure whether he was reading those qualities within me, or giving me a pep talk, or perhaps creating the traits I needed, the way he’d created the ba and the platypus. Whatever the case, I suddenly felt warmer inside, filled with new energy.

“You’re beginning to understand,” he told me. “Words are the source of all power. And names are more than just a collection of letters. Well done, Sadie. You may succeed yet.”

I stared at the funnel of sand. “What will we face on the other side?”

“Enemies and friends,” Ptah said. “But which are which, I can’t say. If you survive, go to the top of the Great Pyramid. That should do nicely for an entry point into the Duat. When you read the Book of Ra—“

He choked, doubling over and dropping his rifle.

“I must go,” he said, straightening with a great deal of effort. “This host can’t stand any more. But, Walt…” He smiled sadly. “Thank you for the beef jerky and juice. There is an answer for you. It’s not one you’ll like, but it is the best way.”

“What do you mean?” Walt asked. “What answer?”

The farmer blinked. Suddenly his eyes were normal. He looked at us in surprise, then yelled something in Arabic and raised his gun.

I grabbed Walt’s hand, and together we jumped into the portal.